"I've been working with him in the cage the last couple of days," Ventura joked.

Abreu had his second multihomer game in three days Thursday night by hitting tape-measure drives in the second and fifth innings and drove in three runs as the White Sox snapped a 14-game losing streak against Cleveland, beating the Indians 7-3.

"He's really good," Ventura said. "That's a simple fact, that he's a good hitter. He hits things hard, and when he hits it hard, they go a long way, whether it's left field or right field. He's doing it for us."

The Cuban slugger hit the first two homers of his major league career Tuesday in Colorado.

Abreu has four homers and 14 RBIs in 10 games.

Alexei Ramirez homered and drove in three runs for Chicago. The Indians had outscored the White Sox 102-45 in a streak that dated to last June.

White Sox starter John Danks (1-0) got off to a rocky start but settled down to allow three runs and six hits in six innings.

"The third inning on, I felt like I was able to throw the ball where I wanted to," Danks said. "I kept it down better. It was a kind of a tale of two games.

"Like I've said, I've never had a bad win."

Indians starter Danny Salazar (0-1) struck out 10 in 3 2/3 innings. He also gave up five runs and six hits, including homers by Abreu and Ramirez.

Salazar's problem was that when the White Sox made contact, it was solid.

"Well, it's an interesting linescore," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "He obviously had really good stuff to have so many strikeouts, but because there was a lot of swing and miss and he was also not hitting his spots all of the time, he was up with a lot of pitches, a lot of deep counts, and they saw a lot of pitches. Then when he made a mistake because they've seen so many pitches, they did some damage to them."

Cleveland gave Salazar to a 2-0 lead by scoring twice in the top of the first.

Abreu homered to lead off the bottom of the second to cut the lead in half, but Asdrubal Cabrera got the run back with a homer leading off the third.

The White Sox tied it at 3 in the bottom of the third on a leadoff homer by Ramirez and an RBI single by Adam Eaton.

Chicago took a 5-3 lead and chased Salazar in the fourth as Ramirez drove home a pair with a double.

Abreu later homered to left field off left-handed reliever Josh Outman.

"Those guys did a great job," Danks said of the White Sox hitters. "I put us in an early hole. They have no quit. This is a fun team to be on. The guys are gonna play until the last out. We saw that today. They didn't hang their heads. They went to work."

Game notes
With INF Lonnie Chisenhall beginning a three-day paternity leave Thursday, the Indians called up Justin Sellers from Triple-A Columbus. "Lonnie will rejoin us Sunday," manager Terry Francona said. "His wife is having the baby at 7 a.m. (Friday). He gave us a heads-up a while back just so we could plan for it. The rule in place now is good. A guy should be back with his wife or family and you shouldn't be short-handed." ... The Indians went 17-2 against the White Sox last season. "We felt like they should have given us a playoff share," Danks said. ... In the second game of the series Friday night, the White Sox send ace LHP Chris Sale (2-0) to the mound against RHP Carlos Carrasco (0-1).